RI Critical Thinking Notes (compiled) 2023

RI KI Y5 Term 1 Critical Thinking I 1 Critical Thinking I AN OVERVIEW Words in bold indicate the main concepts with which you need to be familiar. This chart may be an over-simplification, but it serves as a useful summary or a flowchart for evaluating passages. Start: read passage Yes No. Eg. she is just giving an account of something Stop, no argument to evaluate Yes No No Yes Low probability High probability Stop, reject Stop, reject Yes No No Yes Stop, reject Stop, reject Yes No No Yes Stop, reject Stop, accept Stop, reject Stop, accept Note: FALLACIES are typical flaws in the argument that would result in it being rejected. BWT-Jan2006 Argument is UNRELIABLE Argument is RELIABLE Argument is NOT COGENT Argument is COGENT Does author intend to prove to you her conclusion? Passage is an ARGUMENT Passage is an EXPLANATION Does argument go from general to specific? Does conclusion follow with 100% probability? Argument is DEDUCTIVE Argument is INDUCTIVE Is conclusion likely to be true if premises are true? Is probability low or high? Argument is WEAK Argument is STRONG Is it possible for ALL the premises to be true AND the conclusion false? Argument is VALID Argument is INVALID Are the premises actually true? Argument is SOUND Argument is UNSOUND Are premises actually true? Does argument contain all known relevant information? Not a good deductive argument This is a good deductive argument Is argument circular? T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 T8

RI KI Y5 Term 1 Critical Thinking I 2 UNIT A: PARTS OF AN ARGUMENT In this unit, you will learn:  What an argument is  The basic components of an argument  How to identify an argument  How to distinguish between an argument and an explanation  How to distinguish between premises and conclusions in arguments  How to pick out implicit premises A1 What is an argument? When we think of an argument, some of us may visualize a couple of people locked in a debate or an angry dispute, but from the point of view of a logician an argument may not necessarily involve a dispute or even disagreement. In his point of view, an argument is a set of statements (or propositions, see * below) of which one – the one being argued for – is taken to be established as true on the basis of all the others. When we want to persuade others to accept the truth of a statement, one way of doing this is to offer them reasons or evidence in support of this statement. This is the essence of an argument. For example, someone might say: He must be older than he says he is. He told us he was thirty, b